Beta Thata Pie says Father Knows Best

This article is posted on the Beta Theta Pie website The full article can be found at http://www.thebetathetapi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=630

Father Knows Best

Chuck DeVet, Minnesota ’62, and his wife Patty have had a special place in their hearts for children that began shortly after they were married when DeVet volunteered to work with Crossroads Adoption Services.
DeVet traveled to India for Crossroads and escorted adopted children back with him to Minneapolis. In India, he got a firsthand glimpse of the abject poverty and disregard for vulnerable young life. It was during this trip that his desire to do something for children in need, no matter where, started to develop. The DeVets’ subsequent adoption of Roberto from El Salvador, Linda from Colombia and Sumei from China, underscored this commitment and added to a growing family. Time passed, and the children grew up. DeVet began refining his vision of what he would do when he finished his career.
“For years, I had wanted to do something for needy children someplace,” he said. “I just wasn’t sure where that someplace was. And while there certainly are needy children in the U.S., our society provides some safety nets that are not in place in…less developed countries.”
In 2001, DeVet’s retirement was imminent and his daughter Annetta was about to graduate from college. “If I was ever going to follow through on my dream of helping needy kids, [this] was the time for me to get started.”
The decision was made to explore the conditions in Southeast Asia. Annetta agreed to go along. Neither had been to Vietnam before and when they arrived, both fell in love with the people and the country. “I had always been impressed with the industriousness of the Vietnamese who had migrated to the Twin Cities. They had a strong work ethic and placed a high priority on educating their children. What really surprised us when we got there was how receptive the Vietnamese were to Americans and how many children there were who needed help.”
Their first trip was enlightening and full of promise. Although the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a communist country, there was sufficient freedom for DeVet and Annetta to establish a non-governmental organization (NGO) that would soon become the foundation for their “in-country” operations.
DeVet and Annetta made a second trip later in 2002. By this time, DeVet was retired. They knew what they wanted to do, but how to do it, where to go, who to see and what was required had to be determined. They set about visiting and interviewing about 20 other NGOs that had already been established.
“We learned that help was needed all over the country,” said Annetta. “Many more NGOs were operating in the South and Central areas because of the war and where the U.S. and its allies had been stationed. In addition, the native-born Vietnamese who emigrated were largely from the South and Central part of the country.
When they returned to help, they almost always went back to where they came from.” It was decided to position their organization, Humanitarian Services for the Children of Vietnam (HSCV,) in the North and the process to commence operations began. DeVet had been to China and other Asian countries; he was convinced this was where they needed to be.
Connecting with the appropriate governmental agencies was the next step. They followed all of the procedures, completed all documentation, finished all other requirements according to the rules and began their operations on February 3, 2003.